European-dominated Red Wings on verge of Cup

AP PhotoDetroit's Nicklas Lidstrom is looking to become the first European captain to hoist the Stanley Cup.

DETROIT -- Some thought an Anaheim team loaded with North American players had the ideal design for building a championship club. The Detroit Red Wings are on the verge of tearing up that blueprint and shredding the last remaining myths about European players and the Stanley Cup.

You can't have too many. They're not soft. They compete as hard as anyone else. And they know what it takes to win a title.

The Red Wings are one victory away from winning their fourth Stanley Cup in 11 seasons, their first since 2002. If they defeat the Pittsburgh Penguins tonight in Game 5 of the finals at Joe Louis Arena, the Red Wings would be the first team to win the Cup with more Europeans in their lineup -- 11 are expected to dress -- than North Americans (nine).

Nicklas Lidstrom would become the first European captain to hoist the Stanley Cup. Henrik Zetterberg might become the second European to win the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP, joining Lidstrom, who won it in 2002. They are two of the team's seven Swedes.

"I'm glad I'm on this team with all these guys because they got me to the Cup finals,'' Red Wings forward Dan Cleary, a Canadian, said. "They've been a huge part of it. This is their trophy, World Championships isn't it. They want it as bad as anybody else.''

If last year's run to the conference finals didn't silence critics, taking the final step should.

"As long as you got the determination, as long as you can skate, I don't think (nationality) is that big a deal anymore,'' Lidstrom said.

European players have had a significant impact on each of Detroit's last three Cups (1997, '98 and 2002). But not like this. The Red Wings' top eight playoff scorers are European.

The last two Cup champions, Anaheim and Carolina, each only two Europeans who played regularly. It perpetuated a fallacy, spread by the likes of Canadian TV icon Don Cherry, that too many Euros spoil the pot.

"It's an urban legend,'' Detroit forward Kirk Maltby said. "We see what these guys do firsthand. ... It's blowhardedness that you've got to be a Canadian or a North American to play this game.''

The Red Wings, who pioneered the NHL's European invasion in the 1980s, never bought into it. This organization's drafting and development of skilled Europeans is one of the main reasons it has been a title contender for the better part of two decades.

"Europeans have driven the bus for us,'' Detroit's senior vice president Jimmy Devellano said. "It's time for North Americans to get over it and realize they're good players.''

"If we're fortunate enough to finish this off, you can throw a lot of myths out the window,'' Darren McCarty said. "(Europeans) are the hardest-working and toughest guys. When your best players are your hardest-working guys at both ends of the ice, it's a motivation when you play with them and a deterrent when you play against them.''

Zetterberg has been a two-way force throughout the postseason. He has 23 points, one short of the club playoff record shared by Sergei Fedorov (1995) and Steve Yzerman (1998) and one less than Pittsburgh's Sidney Crosby, who Zetterberg has done a masterful job of defending and frustrating in this series.

Pavel Datsyuk is second on the team in points (20) and hits (49). Johan Franzen has a league playoff high 13 goals. Nobody has dished out more crunching open-ice checks than Niklas Kronwall, who leads all defensemen with 13 assists. They're all European.

"I think we've been tough to play against,'' Lidstrom said. "We don't give teams many shots, try to keep them to the outside. We don't get discouraged by hard-checking teams.''

Of course, North Americans also have been invaluable for the Red Wings, none more so than goaltender Chris Osgood. He has far and away the best goals-against average in the postseason (1.45) and has allowed only four goals in four games in the finals, as he looks to backstop this team to a title for the second time (he also did it in '98).

If Lidstrom is presented with the Cup, either tonight or later in the series, a former free-spending team will have completed a remarkably smooth transition to the NHL's salary-cap world.

And the man widely considered the greatest European player in league history will have helped bridge the gap from the days of Yzerman, Fedorov and Brendan Shanahan to a new era of Red Wings hockey, headed by a new batch of stars, like Zetterberg, Datsyuk and Kronwall, and led by a coach, Mike Babcock, who has molded this team into his own hard-nosed image.

Babcock was in this position once before, coaching Anaheim in Game 7 of the Cup finals against New Jersey in 2003. The Devils won 3-0.

"It just makes you understand how special it is for the people that get an opportunity to (win) it,'' Babcock said. "And you hope one day that can be the group you're involved with.''